QUANTUM MIND

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Wednesday, December 19, 2007

QUATUM MIND: THE THEORIES

David Chalmers

The philosopher David Chalmers has speculated on a number of ways in which quantum mechanics might relate to consciousness.
"One possibility is that instead of postulating novel properties, physics might end up appealing to consciousness itself, in the way that some theorists hold that quantum mechanics does." [3]
"The collapse dynamics leaves a door wide open for an interactionist interpretation". [4]
"The most promising version of such an interpretation allows conscious states to be correlated with the total quantum state of a system, with the extra constraint that conscious states (unlike physical states) can never be superposed. In a conscious physical system such as a brain, the physical and phenomenal states of the system will be correlated in a (nonsuperposed) quantum state. Upon observation of a superposed external system, Schrödinger evolution at the moment of observation would cause the observed system to become correlated with the brain, yielding a resulting superposition of brain states and so (by psychophysical correlation) a superposition of conscious states. But such a superposition cannot occur, so one of the potential resulting conscious states is somehow selected (presumably by a nondeterministic dynamic principle at the phenomenal level). The result is that (by psychophysical correlation) a definite brain state and a definite state of the observed object are also selected". [5]
"If physics is supposed to rule out interactionism, then careful attention to the detail of physical theory is required". [6]

Roger Penrose

In The Emperor's New Mind and Shadows of the Mind, Penrose argues that
Humans have abilities, particularly mathematical ones, that no algorithmic computer (specifically Turing machine) could have, because computers are limited by Godel's incompleteness Theorem. In other words, he believes humans are hypercomputers. (The argument was originally due to John Lucas.)
Godel demonstrated that with any set of axioms, it was possile to produce a statement that was obviously true, but could not be proved by the axioms. The theorem enjoys general acceptance in the mathematical community[7].
Penrose, however, built a further and highly controversial argument on this theorem. He argued that the theorem showed that the brain had the ability to go beyond what can be demonstrated by mathematical axioms, and therefore there is something within the functioning of the brain that is not based on an algorithm (a system of calculations). A computer is just a system of algorithms, and Penrose claimed that Godel's theorem demonstrated that brains could perform functions that no computer could perform.
These assertions have been vigorously contested by many critics and notably by the philosophers Churchland and Grush[8][9].

2. This would require some new physics. Penrose postulates that the currently unknown process underlying quantum collapse supplies the non-algorithmic element.
The random choice of, for instance, the position of a particle, which is involved in the collapse of the wave function was the only physical process that Penrose could find, which was not based on an algorithm. However, randomness was not a promising basis for the quality of mathematical judgement highlighted by his Godel theorem argument.
But Penrose went on to propose that when the wave function did not collapse as a result of a measurement or decoherence in the environment, there could be an alternative form of wave function collapse, which he called objective reduction(OR). In this, each quantum superposition has its own space time geometry. When these become separated by more then the Planck length, they are effected by gravity, become unstable and collapse. OR is strikingly different both from the traditional orthodoxy of Neils Bohr's Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory and from some more modern theories which avoid wave function collapse altogether such as 'many worlds' or some forms of decoherence theory.
Penrose further proposes that OR is neither random nor governed by an algorithm, but is 'non-computational', selecting information embedded in the fundamental level of space time geometry.

3. Collapse requires a coherent superposed state to work on. Penrose borrows Stuart Hameroff's proposal about microtubules to supply this.
Initially, Penrose had lacked any detailed proposals for how OR could occur in the brain. Later on cooperation with Stuart Hameroff [10] supplied this side of the theory. Microtubules were central to Hameroff's proposals. These are the core element of the cytoskeleton, which provides a supportive structure and performs various functions in body cells. In additions to these functions, it was now proposed that the microtubules could support macroscopic quantum features known as Bose condensates. It was also suggested that these condensates could link with other neurons via gap junctions. This is claimed to permit quantum coherence to extend over a large area of the brain. It is suggested that when one of these areas of quantum coherence collapses, there is an instance of consciousness, and the brain has access to a non-computational process embedded in the fundamental level of space time geometry.
At the same time, it was postulated that conventional synaptic activity influences and is influenced by the activity in the microtubules. This part of the process is referred to as 'orchestration' hence the theory is called Orchestrated Objective Reduction or more commonly Orch OR.
Hameroff's proposals like those of Penrose attracted much criticism. However the most cogent attach on Orch OR and quantum mind theories in general was the view that conditions in the brain would lead to any quantum coherence decohering too quickly for it to be relevant to neural processes. This general criticism is discussed in the Science section below.
(Penrose is not interested in explaining phenomenal consciousness, qualia, generally regarded as the most mysterious feature of consciousness, but instead focuses mainly on the cognitive powers of mathematicians.)
The theory has been much criticised [11] [12] [13]

Henry Stapp

Physically, Stapp's approach is aligned with objective collapse theory, in that the deterministic evolution of the wave function, and its indeterministic collapse are seen as two real and ontologically distinct phenomena. Collapse events occurring within the brain — the mind's observation or measurement of the brain — are particularly important. Since Stapp sees collapse as a mental process and the deterministic evolution of brain states as physical, his approach is philosophically aligned with interactionist dualism. The process by which collapse selects and actuality from a set of possibilities is seen by Stapp as a literally a process of choice, and not merely a random dice-throw. His approach has implications with regard to time. Since the future depends on decisions in the present, it is not pre-existing, as in the block universe theory; rather there is an evolving universe in which subjects participate, as in Whitehead's metaphysics. [14]

Stapp envisages consciousness as exercising top-level control over neural excitation in the brain. Quantum brain events are suggested to occur at the whole brain level, and are seen as being selected from the large-scale excitation of the brain. The neural excitations are viewed as a code, and each conscious experience as a selection from this code. The brain, in this theory, is proposed to be a self-programming computer with a self-sustaining input from memory, which is itself a code derived from previous experience. This process results in a number of probabilities from which consciousness has to select. The conscious act is a selection of a piece of top-level code, which then exercises ongoing control over the flow of neural excitation. This process refers to the top levels of brain activity involved with information gathering, planning and the monitoring of the execution of plans. Conscious events are proposed to be capable of grasping a whole pattern of activity, thus accounting for the unity of consciousness, and providing a solution to the 'binding problem'.

Stapp's version of the conscious brain is proposed to be a system that is internally determined in a way that cannot be represented outside the system, whereas for the rest of the physical universe an external representation plus a knowledge of the laws of physics allows an accurate prediction of future events.
Stapp proposes that the proof of his theory requires the identification of the neurons that provide the top-level code and also the process by which memory is turned into additional top-level code.

David Bohm

David Bohm took the view that quantum theory and relativity contradicted one another, and that this contradiction implied that there existed a more fundamental level in the physical universe[15]. He claimed that both quantum theory and relativity pointed towards this deeper theory. This more fundamental level was supposed to represent an undivided wholeness and an implicate order, from which arose the explicate order of the universe as we experience it.

Bohm's implicate order applies both to matter and consciounsess, and he proposed that it could explain the relationship between them. Mind and matter are here seen as projections into our explicate order from the underlying reality of the implicate order. Bohm claims that when we look at the matter in space, we can see nothing in these concepts that helps us to understand consciousness.
In Bohm's scheme there is a fundamental level where consciousness is not distinct from matter. Bohm's view of consciousness is connected to Karl Pribram's holographic conception of the brain [16] [17]. Pribram regards sight and the other senses as lenses without which the other senses would appear as a hologram. Pribram proposes that information is recorded all over the brain, and that it is enfolded into a whole, similar to a hologram. It is suggested that memories are connected by association and manipulated by logical thought. If the brain is also receiving sensory input all these are proposed to unite in overall experience or consciousness.

In trying to describe the nature of consciousness, Bohm discusses the experience of listening to music. He thinks that the feeling of movement and change that make up our experience of music derives from both the immediate past and the present being held in the brain together, with the notes from the past seen as transformations rather than memories. The notes that were implicate in the immediate past are seen as becoming explicate in the present. Bohm compares this to consciousness emerging from the implicate order.

Bohm sees the movement, change or flow and also the coherence of experiences such as listening to music as a manifestation of the implicate order. He claims to derive evidence for this from the work of Piaget[18] in studying infants. He claims that these studies show that young children have to learn about time and space, because they are part of the explicate order, but have a 'hard-wired' understanding of movement because it is part of the implicate order. He compares this 'hard-wiring' to Chomsky's theory that grammar is 'hard-wired' into young human brains.
In his writings, Bohm never proposed any specific brain mechanism by which his implicate order could emerge in a way that was relevant to consciousness. However, recent papers by physicist, Gustav Bernroider, have indicated that he thinks that Bohm's implicate-explicate structure can account for the relationship between neural processes and consciousness[19]. In a paper published in 2005 Bernroider elaborated his proposals for the physical basis of this process[20]. The main thrust of his paper was the argument that quantum coherence may be sustained in ion channels for long enough to be relevant for neural processes and the channels could be entangled with surrounding lipids and proteins and with other channels in the same membrane. Ion channels regulate the electrical potential across the axon membrane and thus play a central role in the brain's information processing.

Bernroider bases his work on recent studies of the potassium (K+)ion channel in its closed state and draws particularly on the atomic-level spectroscopy work of the MacKinnon group [21][22][23][24][25]. The ion channels have a filter region which allows in K+ ions and bars other ions. These studies show that the filter region has a framework of five sets of four oxygen atoms, which are part of the carboxyl group of amino-acid molecules in the surrounding protein. These are referred to as binding pockets. Two K+ ions are trapped in the selection filter of the closed ion channel. Each of these ions is electostatically bound to two sets of oxygen atoms or binding pockets, involving eight oxygen atoms in total. Both ions in the channel oscillate between two configurations.
Bernroider uses this recently revealed structure to speculate about the possibility of quantum coherence in the ion channels. Bernroider and co-author Sisir Roy's calculations suggested to them that the behaviour of the ions in the K channel could only be understood at the quantum level. Taking this as their starting point, they then ask whether the structure of the ion channel can be related to logic states. Further calculations lead them to suggest that the K+ ions and the oxygen atoms of the binding pockets are two quantum-entangled sub-systems, which they then equate to a quantum computational mapping. The ions that are destined to be expelled from the channel are proposed to encode information about the state of the oxygen atoms. It is further proposed the separate ion channels could be quantum entangled with one another

Quantum Brain Dynamics

The ideas behind QBD derived originally from the physicists, Hiroomi Umezawa[26], and Herbert Frohlich[27] in the 1960s. In recent decades these ideas have been elaborated and given greater prominence by younger physicists such as Mari Jibu[28], Kunio Yasue[29] and Giuseppe Vitiello[30].In quantum brain dynamics(QBD)the electrical dipoles of the water molecules that constitute 70% of the brain are proposed to constitute a quantum field, known here as the cortical field. The quanta of this field are described as corticons. In the theory, this field interacts with quantum coherent waves generated by biomolecules in the neurons and propagating along the neuronal network.
Frohlich is the source of the idea that quantum coherent waves could be generated in the neuronal network. Frohlich argued that it was not clear how order could be sustained in living systems given the disruptive influence of the fluctuations in biochemical processes. He viewed the electric potential across the neuron membrane as the observable feature of some form of underlying quantum order. His studies claimed to show that with an oscillating charge in a thermal bath, large numbers of quanta may condense into a single state known as a Bose condensate. This state allows long-range correlation amongst the dipoles involved. Further to this, biomolecules were proposed to line up along actin filaments (part of the cytoskeleton) and dipole oscillations propagate along the filaments as quantum coherent waves. This now has some experimental support in the form of confirmation that biomolecules with high electric dipole moment have been shown to have a periodic oscillation[31]. Vitiello also argues that the ordered chains of chemical reactions on which biological tissues depend would collapse without some form of quantum ordering, which in QBD is described by quantum field theory rather than quantum mechanics.
Vitiello provides citations, which are claimed to support his view of biological tissue. These include studies of radiation effect on cell growth[32],response to external stimuli[33], non-linear tunnelling[34],coherent nuclear motion in membrane proteins[35],optical coherence in biological systems[36], energy transfer via solitons and coherent excitations[37].

QBD proposes that the cortical field not only interacts with, but also to a good extent controls the neuronal network. It suggests that biomolecular waves propagate along the actin filaments in the area of the cell membranes and dendritic spines. The waves derive energy from ATP molecules stored in the cell membrane and control the ion channels, which in turn regulate the flow of signals to the synapses. Vitiello claims that QBD does not require quantum oscillations to last as long as the actual time to decoherence.
The proponents of QBD differ somewhat as the exact way in which it produces consciousness. Jibu and Yasue think that the interaction between the energy quanta of the cortical field and the biomolecular waves of the neuronal network, particularly the dendritic part of the network, is what produces consciousness. On the other hand, Vitiello thinks that the quantum states involved in QBD produce two poles, a subjective representation of the external world and a self. This self opens itself to the representation of the external world. Consciousness is, in this theory, not in either the self or the external representation, but between the two in the opening of one to the other.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Ongoing Debate

Science

The main argument against the quantum mind proposition is that the structures of the brain are much too large for quantum effects to be important. It is impossible for coherent quantum states to form for very long in the brain and impossible for them to exist at scales on the order of the size of neurons.

This does not imply that classical mechanics can explain consciousness, but that quantum effects including superposition and entanglement are insignificant. Quantum chemistry is required to understand the actions of neurotransmitters, for example.

One well-known critic of the quantum mind is Max Tegmark. Based on his calculations, Tegmark concluded that quantum systems in the brain decohere quickly and cannot control brain function, "This conclusion disagrees with suggestions by Penrose and others that the brain acts as a quantum computer, and that quantum coherence is related to consciousness in a fundamental way"[11].

Proponents of quantum consciousness theories have sought to defend them against Tegmark's criticism. In respect of QBD, Vitiello has argued that Tegmark's work applies to theories based on quantum mechanics but not to those such as QBD that are based on quantum field theory. In respect of Penrose and Hameroff's Orch OR theory, Hameroff along with Hagan and Tuszynski replied to Tegmark[36]. They claimed that Tegmark based his calculations on a model that was different from Orch OR. It is argued that in the Orch OR model the microtubules are shielded from decoherence by ordered water. Energy pumping as a result of thermal disequilibrium, Debye layer screening and quantum error correction, deriving from the geometry of the microtubule lattice are also proposed as possible sources of shielding. Similarly, in his extension of Bohm's ideas, Bernroider has claimed that the binding pockets in the ion selection filters could protect against decoherence[19]. So far, however, there has been no experimental confirmation of the ability of the features mentioned above to protect against decoherence.

Philosophy

Another line of criticism is that no physical theory is well suited to explaining consciousness, particularly in its most problematical form, phenomenal consciousness or qualia, known as the hard problem of consciousness. It is not so much that colours and tastes and feelings --qualia or secondary qualities -- have been deliberately banished, but more that they cannot be captured in any mathematical description, which means they cannot be explicitly represented in physics, since all physical theory is expressed in mathematical language (as explained in Eugene Wigner's famous paper The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences). If no physical theory can express qualia, no physical theory can fully explain consciousness. Replacing the mathematical apparatus of classical physics with the mathematical apparatus of quantum mechanics is therefore of no help in understanding consciousness, and indeed there is no known example of a quantum equation which encapsulates a taste or colour.

As David Chalmers puts it:

Nevertheless, quantum theories of consciousness suffer from the same difficulties as neural or computational theories. Quantum phenomena have some remarkable functional properties, such as nondeterminism and nonlocality. It is natural to speculate that these properties may play some role in the explanation of cognitive functions, such as random choice and the integration of information, and this hypothesis cannot be ruled out a priori. But when it comes to the explanation of experience, quantum processes are in the same boat as any other. The question of why these processes should give rise to experience is entirely unanswered. [12]

Other philosophers, such as Patricia and Paul Churchland and Daniel Dennett[13] reject the idea that there is anything puzzling about consciousness in the first place.


Sunday, October 14, 2007

The TRUTH (nested Q-Time) can be Grokked
so as to be understood in Now.
And Believed.

All we have learned of psychotherapy suggests that it is at the precise time when the individual feels as if his whole life is crashing down around hir, that hir is most likely to achieve an inner re-organisation constituting a quantum leap in hir growth toward maturity.

Our hope, our belief, is that it is precisely when society's future seems so beleaguered – when its problems seem almost staggering in complexity, when so many individuals seem alienated, and so many values seem to have deteriorated – that it is most likely to achieve a metamorphosis in society's growth toward maturity, toward more truly enhancing and fulfilling the human spirit than ever before.

Thus we envision the possibility of an evolutionary leap to a trans-industrial society that not only has know-how, but also a deep inner knowledge of what is worth doing."

Human history represents such a radical break with the natural systems of biological organization that preceded it, that it must be the response to a kind ofattractor, or dwell point that lies ahead in the temporal dimension.

Persistently western religions have integrated into their theologies the notion of a kind of end of the world, and I think that a lot ofpsychedelic experimentation sort of confirms this intuition.

I mean, it isn't going to happen according to any of the scenarios of orthodox religion, but the basic intuition, that the universe seeks closure in a kind of omega point of transcendance, is confirmed.

It's almost as though this object in hyperspace, glittering in hyperspace, throws off reflections of itself, which actually ricochet into the past, illuminating this mystic, inspiring that saint or visionary, and that out of these fragmentary glimpses of eternity we can build a kind of map, of not only the past of the universe, and the evolutionary egression into novelty, but a kind of map of the future.

This is what shamanism is always been about, a shaman is someone who has been to the end, it's someone who knows how the world really works, and knowing how the world really works means to have risen outside, above, beyond the dimensions of ordinary space, time, and casuistry, and actually seen the wiring under the board, stepped outside the confines of learned culture and learned and embedded language, into the domain of what Wittgenstein called the unspeakable, the transcendental presense of the other, which can be abstracted, in various ways, to yield systems of knowledge which can be brought back into ordinary social space for the good of the community.

So in the context of ninety percent of human culture, the shaman has been the agent of evolution, because the shaman learns the techniques to go between ordinary reality and the domain of the ideas, this higher dimensional continuum that is somehow parallel to us, available to us, and yet ordinarily occluded by cultural convention out of fear of the mystery, I believe.

And what shamans are, I believe, are people who have been able to decondition themselves from the community's instinctual distrust of the mystery, and to go into it, to go into this bewildering higher dimension, and gain knowledge, recover the jewel lost at the beginning of time, to save souls, cure, commune with the ancestors and so forth and so on.

Q-Shamanism is not a religion, it's a set of techniques, and the principal Technique is the use of psychedelic plants with Mind-Intuitive leaping upon the Time-space field. Our Planet, by Hir Rotation, is bending the time-Space fields. At the surface where we all live is the greatest stress point, and it is here where the Q-shaman enters into that "streched" field. Hir Q-Real-Eyes "seeing" the Future, past, many "present" fields. Hir Choice!

What psychedelics do is they dissolve space-time boundaries,(Planet rotation is the major force) and in the presence of dissolved boundaries, one cannot continue to close one's eyes to the ruination of the earth, the poisoning of the seas, and the consequences of two thousand years of unchallenged dominator culture, based on monotheism, hatred of nature, suppression of the female, and so forth and so on.

So, what shamans have to do is act as exemplars, by making this cosmic journey to the domain of the Gaian ideas, and then bringing them back in the form of art to the struggle to save the world.

The planet has a kind of intelligence, that it can actually open a channel of communication with an individual human being.

The message that nature sends is, transform your language through a synergy between electronic culture and the psychedelic imagination, a synergy between dance and idea, a synergy between understanding and intuition, and dissolve the boundaries that your culture has sanctioned between you, to become part of this Gaian supermind, I mean I think it's fairly profound, it's fairly apocalyptic.

I think this alien intelligence is something so bizarre that it actually masquerades as an extraterrestrial so as not to alarm us by the true implications of what it is. ...This dualism of the interior and the exterior may have to be overcome.

It obviously transcends the individual .

But I suspect it is something like an Overmind of the species and that the highest form of human organization is not realized in the democratic individual.

It is Real-Eyezed in a Q-Dimension none of us has ever penetrated

--the mind of the species.
It is the hand at the tiller of history."

Eating Spiritual Intelligence

It's all very well being told our descendants will experience every moment of their lives as a magical epiphany.
For emotional primitives and our loved ones at present, most of life's moments bring nothing of the sort.

In centuries to come, our baseline of emotional well-being may indeed surpass anything today's legacy wetware can even contemplate.

Right now, however, a future Post-Darwinian Era of paradise-engineering can seem an awfully long way off. Mainstream society today has a desperately underdeveloped conception of mental health.

There's clearly a strong causal link between the raw biological capacity to experience happiness and the extent to which one's life is felt to be worthwhile.

High-minded philosophy treatises should complicate but not confuse the primacy of the pleasure-pain axis.
So one very practical method of life-enrichment consists in chemically engineering happier brains for all in the here-and-now. Yet how can this best be done?

Any strategy which doesn't subvert our inbuilt hedonic treadmill of inhibitory feedback mechanisms in the CNS will fail.

Political and socio-economic reforms offer at best a lame stopgap.

To the scientific naturalist, all routes to happiness must ultimately be biological: "culture" must be neurochemically encoded to exert its effects. Some of these routes to happiness involve the traditional environmental detours.

They are too technical, diverse and futile to tackle here. If the quality of our lives is to be significantly enhanced in the long term, then the genetically predisposed set-point of our emotional thermostats needs to be recalibrated.

The malaise-ridden norm typically adaptive in humanity's ancestral environment must be scrapped.

So while we wait for germ-line gene-therapy to become standard, it's worth considering instead how ordinary early twenty-first century Homo sapiens can sustainably maximise emotional well-being with only present-day pharmacology to rely on.

No less importantly, how is it possible to combine staying continuously high with retaining one's sense of social and ethical responsibility to other people and life-forms?

Extracting reliable information on this topic is extraordinarily difficult for laity and professionals alike. The layman is more likely to be given heavily slanted propaganda. Unvarnished fact might confuse his supposedly uneducated and functionally diminutive brain. Career-scientists, on the other hand, are bedevilled by a different problem.

Access to funds, laboratories, raw materials, journal publication, professional preferment, and licenses to conduct experimental trials is all dependent on researchers delivering results their paymasters want to hear. The disincentives to intellectual integrity could scarcely be greater; and they are cloaked in such reputable disguise.

By way of illustration, it's worth contemplating one far-fetched scenario. How might an everlasting-happiness drug - a drug which (implausibly!) left someone who tried it once living happily-ever-after - find itself described in the literature?

"Substance x induces severe, irreversible structural damage to neurotransmitter subsystem y. Its sequelae include mood-congruent cognitive delusions, treatment-resistant euphoria, and toxic affective psychosis."

Eeek! Needless to say, no responsible adult would mess around with a potent neurotoxin under this description.

Several excellent researchers play the game by the rules. They keep their heterodox opinions to themselves. Others find such cognitive dissonance too unpleasant. So they gradually internalise the puritanical role and tendency to warped scientific prose expected of them. [Whereas horribly-tortured experimental animals, for instance, blandly get "used" and "sacrificed", certain drugs always get "abused" by "drug-abusers"] On the other hand, some of the most original and productive minds in the field of psychopharmacology - pre-eminently Alexander Shulgin - have already been silenced. Many more careers have been intellectually strangled at birth or consigned to professional oblivion.

The danger of poisoning the wells of information, for whatever motives, is straightforward. When young people discover they have been lied to or deceived, over cannabis for instance, they will pardonably assume that they have been lied to or deceived over the dangers of other illegals too. And this, to put it mildly, would be exceedingly rash.

Most recently, the Internet daily delivers up an uncontrollable flood-tide of fresh ideas to counter official misinformation. Unfortunately, a lot of it isn't much more objective in content or style than the professional journals it complements. Devising one's own system of filtering and quality-control to drown out the noise is a challenging task for anybody.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

The Quantum Reality and Mind Power

By James Wallace

CEO, Meta-wealth

Quantum physics, quantum mechanics, quantum theory, unified quantum field. To scholars and scientists these words indicate a curious set of facts – a little more than ho hum. To deep thinkers, metaphysicians, philosophers, those dedicated to introspection and asking the bigger questions in life, these words conjure a powerful and enthusiastic response. Why the tremendous difference in reactions?

Most scientists are unwilling to consider the possible conclusions and probable implications surrounding quantum theory. The rest of us curious about this phenomenon are able to, unmolested by the scientific establishment, consider the “what ifs”.

One of those considerations is the possibility of the mind’s affect on quanta; a very good question indeed. To contemplate this properly, you must consider the nature of quanta and separately, the nature of the mind – then compare notes. Both areas are equally mystifying, equally inspiring, and equally confusing. We’ll start with quanta.

Learn more with Quantum Mind Power

What is the scientific nature of Quanta? Quantum is an indivisible entity of energy. Quanta (plural for quantum) are packets of this sub-atomic energy. When we try to look past quanta, it vanishes. Quanta are waves and particles, mass and non-mass, matter and non-matter. It is measurable and immeasurable, real and not real, visible and not visible... all at the same time – inherently dualistic. It is completely “opposite”, physical and non-physcial, in the same place, space and time, contrary to the current classical (and still widely accepted) laws of physics.

What in the world does any of that have to do with the mind? Well, there’s one other point: Quanta, the building blocks of everything in the universe, appear only when we observe it. The very act of observation brings it to life; again standing popular physics on its side. To bring the mind into context, we first must briefly comment on brain function.

The brain, as we all know, is an organ, a collection of neural networks processing information, a mass of molecules performing assessments and sending signals to other areas of the body – countless and endless computations. The question is, computations of what, exactly? Stimulus. What then is stimulus? Generally speaking, if we follow logic, all stimuli are “things” impressing themselves upon the brain and all things are made up of quanta. Quanta are wave and particle, energetic and physical. If we stick with the particle and physical component of quanta (half the equation), we can see that the brain interprets, translates, defines and directs the body to respond to the stimulus of the physical expression of quanta.

Golf With Your Quantum Mind
By Craig Sigl

Does that headline create some curiosity in you? Are you wondering what the heck this is going to be about. As I came up for the idea to write about this, I wasn't quite sure myself. But then I thought, let's just go first to a book called "Quantum Golf" by Kjell Enhager.

I first read this book a couple years ago, before I was trained in Neuro-linguistic Programming (I'm now a Master Practitioner). And to be honest, I didn't understand it at all. I even discussed it with my local pro and between the two of us, decided that it was a book that was better left to the psychology wizards.

Lately, I've been extremely fascinated with learning about what is called "Quantum Physics" (What does this have to do with golf? Don't worry, I'll get there). It seems that scientists have been studying about things that are smaller than atoms since the turn of the 20th century and that's what they call this science. Remember in high school or maybe before that, we were all taught that the building blocks of all matter are atoms? Well, it turns out it's not true.

The big "Aha" about Quantum Physics is that we create our reality through our observations and thoughts. And it's now been proven by physicists. These scientists were so baffled by this idea that some of them ended up turning to mystic religions and others went bonkers over it.

Fast forward to Quantum Golf. It's a fictional story about a man named Smith. He's from New York and a typical golfer who has taken numerous lessons and done everything under the sun in an attempt to improve his game (sound like anyone you know?). In desperation, he is told of this golf pro, St. Claire, who lives in the middle of nowhere in the farmlands of middle America.

Smith flies out to take lessons from him and at the end of the story, of course, he "gets it" and starts to play beyond what he thought was possible. He is taught about creating a "superfluid" swing. He learns to have "Q vision." St. Claire tells him about the difference between "classical golf" and "Quantum golf." Classical golf is about the conscious swing and has gotten him nowhere so far. He tells him that those who have mastered Quantum golf hit the ball perfectly straight!

St. Claire teaches him such ideas as: "The mind has its attention only on the surface level, and then what you're failing to take into consideration as your priority is the unchanging, reliable inner being of the individual who is swinging the club."

Starting to sound a little far out now? Ok, that's what I thought too the first time I read this book. But now, it all makes perfect sense to me. You see, classical physics teaches us about how everything is mechanical. About how you can trace back every cause to it's effect in a way that can be described or codified by mathematics and known laws of our planet such as gravity. This is so much like folks who think that the gateway to playing great golf is to consciously work on their golf swing until they somehow come to the idea in their own mind that it is now perfect...and THAT never happens!

Quantum golf and Quantum physics itself allows for the dynamic of the human mind to actually change reality. Yes, that's what I wrote...CHANGE REALITY. Now, I'm not going to get into a discussion about what is reality because I sometimes get dizzy thinking about that myself. However, too many great philosophers have said things like: "If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right." Henry Ford.

or:

"Nothing is good or bad, except what thinking makes it so." William Shakespeare

In the past, I would have read this kind of great quote and thought to myself something like: "Oh that's nice" and went on my merry way of doing what I've always done and not getting what I wanted to get.

Today, when I hear or read such quotes I not only believe it in the deepest part of my golfing body and mind, but I can teach it with the backing of science behind me.

Once you really believe in the Quantum nature of your own mind, all sorts of good things happen to your golf game. Can you think of a time when you played with pure joy and exhilaration? Have you ever had a time when you stood over a putt...AND YOU KNEW you were going to make it !? Have you ever played with another golfer and just felt his or her attitude rub off on you? And then you played better because of it? I want you to have more of these experiences.

Copyright 2006 Craig Sigl

Craig Sigl is a Master of NLP, Hypnotherapist, and 5 handicap golfer teaching folks worldwide how to improve their game without practicing. Visit http://www.break80golf.com for a free ebook and ecourse to learn his methods

QUANTUM MIND

Are life and consciousness connected to the funda-mental level of reality?

Quantum Mind 2007

July 16-20, 2007

Salzburg, Austria

Toward a Science of Consciousness 2007,
July 23-26, 2007
Budapest, Hungary

Toward a Science of Consciousness 2006

April 4-8, 2006,

Tucson, Arizona

Dream Debate DVD

MindVille Movie

Orch OR on WikiPedia

Penrose Review in WIRED

Consciousness and a Theory of Everything - Roger Penrose

Hackery/Quackery

in Scientific American

Breakthrough Study

on EEG of Meditation

Debate with Christof Koch

in Sci-Con Review

"Quantum approaches to consciousness"

by Harald Atmanspacher in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Changes at

The Center for Consciousness Studies

What the bleep?

Learning Annex talk series

Consciousness, the Brain and Spirituality - A Quantum Connection?


Consciousness defines our existence and reality, but the mechanism by which

the brain generates thoughts and feelings remains unknown.

Most explanations portray the brain as a computer, with nerve cells ("neurons") and their synaptic connections acting as simple switches. However computation alone cannot explain why we have feelings and awareness, an "inner life."

We also don't know if our conscious perceptions accurately portray the external world. At its base, the universe follows the seemingly bizarre and paradoxical laws of quantum mechanics, with particles being in multiple places simultaneously, connected over distance, and with time not existing. But the “classical” world we perceive is definite, with a flow of time. The boundary or edge (quantum state reduction, or ‘collapse of the wave function”) between the quantum and classical worlds somehow involves consciousness.

I spent twenty years studying how computer-like structures called microtubules inside neurons and other cells could process information related to consciousness. But when I read The emperor’s new mind by Sir Roger Penrose in 1991 I realized that consciousness may be a specific process on the edge between the quantum and classical worlds. Roger and I teamed up to develop a theory of consciousness based on quantum computation in microtubules within neurons. Roger’s mechanism for an objective threshold for quantum state reduction connects us to the most basic, “funda-mental” level of the universe at the Planck scale, and is called objective reduction (OR). Our suggestion for biological feedback to microtubule quantum states is orchestration (Orch), hence our model is called orchestrated objective reduction, Orch OR.

"Mind and intelligence are woven into the fabric of the universe" - Freeman Dyson

In recent years I have concluded that such a connection to the basic proto-conscious level of reality where Platonic values are embedded is strikingly similar to Buddhist concepts, and may account for spirituality.

This website is intended to convey the ideas and implications behind Orch OR. Click here for a general overview. However for a reader-friendly, entry level approach, try Interviews (or Popular Press under Media). The general categories are:

Personal includes my professional status, a statement about my interest in consciousness, curriculum vitae, contact information and a personal photo gallery.

Publications includes articles related to quantum consciousness/Orch OR in several categories:

Media includes lectures, Powerpoint presentations, computer simulations, popular press articles, images.

Views includes slightly tangential material from me and others.

Quantum Mind Archives includes abstracts from the two Quantum Mind conferences held in 1999 in Flagstaff, Arizona, and in 2003 in Tucson. Also included are archives from the Quantum Mind email discussion group which ran from June, 1998 to October, 2002.

Ultimate Computing is my complete book Ultimate computing: Biomolecular consciousness and nanotechnology , published by Elsevier-North Holland in 1987. Some have called it my “pre-quantum ode to microtubules” (assisted by Conrad Schneiker)

Friday, August 24, 2007

Comments on “Quantum Mind”

How does quantum mechanics connect to mind or intelligence? There have been many debates on that subject lately, ranging from solid and serious to utterly florid and incoherent imaginings. (Don’t worry, I won’t name names for the latter.) Here I will try to disentangle a few basic points.

First, of course, almost everyone agrees that we need quantum mechanics to describe the lowest level of what happens in molecules or chips. That is THE physical reality, for all practical purposes, when we try to understand the brain.

However, there is a big difference between “quantum devices” and “quantum systems.” In electronics, it is vey common to use all kinds of advanced quantum theory in order to build a simple little box which acts like a simple, classical “AND gate.” We build up large computing systems by combining many, many simple devices, each of which is designed to perform a straightforward function that doesn’t involve any kind of quantum mechanics and quantum logic. I personally tend to believe that the human brain is also based on that kind of principle, but – please forgive me – that there is also another part of our mind, which I think of as “the soul,” which does not. (I am not advocating classical Dualism, but something a bit more complex.)

In hard core, mainstream physics and engineering research, most informed people now agree that we can (and have!) build “quantum computers,” a new kind of computer which exploits quantum principles at a systems level to achieve new kinds of capability beyond capacity of computers built up from simple devices in a classical way. But is the human brain (or even the mouse brain?) such a computer? I tend to doubt it.

In the community which believes most in the concepts of “quantum mind,” Stuart Hameroff and Michael Conrad have been, perhaps, the most articulate spokesmen. Conrad, in particular, developed what I view as the most refined and plausible version of the quantum mind hypothesis, though I also recall a Japanese speaker at one of Hameroff’s conferences whom I wish I remembered more.

Conrad argued, in effect, that the molecules inside each cell might be implementing a kind of quantum associative memory. This would enable individual neurons to perform complex associative memory tasks which a classical neuron cannot. I personally feel that the probability of this is less than 20 percent, but (especially when we are involved in funding research) we need to work to keep an open mind. To act in a proper way, I challenged the quantum mind community: can you demonstrate this empirically? Can you train a single neuron, in culture on a chip, to learn to perform a complex mapping, such as XOR or the N-bit parity problem, which an associative memory neuron could perform easily but a more clasical neuron could not? Maybe this wouldn’t be the final, definitive test of quantum mind, but it would at least give us more basis for taking the idea seriously (if the data are consistent with it), and it would start to tell us real things about real neurons and real brains, at a functional level. No one took me up on it – yet. But people like Jose Principe at the University of Florida certainly are working hard on seeing what neurons really can learn -- in a systematic, task-oriented way – in refined, controlled environments.

But again – even if (as I expect) we find no evidence for “quantum power” in the brain, that doesn’t mean that we cannot build it in machines.

At this writing (2006), the hard core quantum computing community is somewhat discouraged. Yes, they have built and tested real quantum computers. But will they ever be able to scale them up to be truly relevant to practical or large-scale applications of any kind? (General-purpose intelligence is, of course, a large-scale phenomenon, requiring a lot more than a handful of quantum bits or “qubits”) Can we even find general purpose “programs” that could take advantage of quantum computers, for anything but factoring numbers and breaking codes? My personal feeling is that we probably can, for two reasons. First, we can take advantage of learning to develop quantum computers which exploit their massive powers without having to be programmed. (This idea is discussed in some of my older papers, but has come much closer to reality due to efforts such as those of Elizabeth Behrman and Dvaid Meyers, who have led workshops on that topic in recent years.) Second, a new understanding of the foundations of quantum theory suggests a new way of thinking about quantum computing which helps to explain some of the frustrations of the past – and points to new ways of understanding and exploiting what is actually possible.

Curiously enough, this leads to a view of the mind which is not so different, in the end, from the picture in Dan Simmons’ science fiction series Hyperion.

There is a totally different stream of thinking, in physics, which asks whether the universe itself – the underlying laws of reality – might actually look like “A Great Mind” instead of a “Great Machine.” Personally, I believe that we have much more urgent and compelling research to do at the present time, in order to understand what is confronting us right now in physics – but sooner or later, it does make sense to look for clues that might justify such a different possibility. It does seem more plausible to me, ultimately, than Conrad’s hypothesis. For the moment, my current thoughts about how to explore the digital universe idea are best expressed in an old email or two. One of the key challenges would be to actually prove some of the interesting claims that Wolfram makes about being able to reproduce general relativity as an emergent consequence of a more digital model. (Unfortunately, I do not have the most relevant email on that here at hand as I type this…)

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Transform Your Life... Transform Your Business

What Would You Do If You Had Complete Control Over Every Aspect Of Your Life And All Of Your Outcomes?

Over the last several decades, several technologies for accelerated human change have emerged which revolutionize our abilities to communicate, to model excellence, and to install new strategies for highly successful living.

Quantum Mind Dynamics provides you with the very latest methods in the leading edge mind technologies of Neuro Linquistic Programming (NLP), Hypnosis, Time Line Therapy® (TLT), other advanced communications processes, learning, and creativity.

What does that mean for you? Now more than ever before, you have the power to become whatever you want to be, do whatever you want to do and have whatever you want to have!

Within these web pages, you have access to the most powerful training, coaching, consulting, and breakthrough sessions on the planet to help you realize your dreams, whether personal or business.

  • Become a master persuader and communicator. Communication is perhaps the single most important skill in business and in our personal lives. Your ability to lead, persuade, and manage depends on it. It is the centerpiece of happy and fulfilling relationships. Your ability to communicate with yourself will largely determine how successful you are at reaching your goals and maintaining a happy state of mind.
  • Take your business and career to new heights of success. NLP offers skills that allow you to master yourself in any business setting. Become a better leader, manager, and team builder. Improve your abilities to communicate, market and sell to customers. Create processes to hire the best people and place them in positions where they will be highly productive and happy. Build highly effective organizations and resolve organizational and personnel conflicts.
  • Heal your past. By removing barriers from your past, you open the door to emotional freedom and new levels of achievement and happiness. You can eliminate negative emotions, remove limiting believes, and create a positive, winning attitude.
  • Attract wealth and abundance. Your ability to create wealth and abundance is dependent on your state of mind, your attitude, your values, and your beliefs. Many people have actually programmed themselves for failure, but simple and powerful techniques exist which can help you quickly and easily attract all the wealth and abundance you could ever want.
  • Maintain high levels of health and fitness. Your values, beliefs, emotions, and attitudes also play a profound role in your health and fitness. Learning to manage these can help you reach and maintain exceptional levels of health and fitness.
  • Program yourself for success. By modeling and installing strategies for excellence, utilizing powerful goal setting techniques, and learning to manage your states, values and beliefs, you create an almost unstoppable program for extraordinary success in all that you chose to do.
  • Build happy, loving relationships. Relationships depend on rapport, understanding each others individual communication and thinking styles,and, where appropriate, aligning values and beliefs. NLP and Time Line Therapy provide powerful tools to perform these tasks to build strong friendships and happy passionate relationships.
  • Help others achieve self-mastery. You can become certified to practice NLP, Time Line Therapy and Hypnosis. The trainings are extremely effective, surprisingly quick and in the process you get to work on yourself. Business people, health professionals, educators and anyone who wants to create lasting change will find these skills extremely valuable. This is not jsut an education, but a new, powerful way to manage your live to achieve all that you want.

Many thousands of people around the globe have benefited from Neuro Linguistic Programming, Time Line Therapy, and Hypnosis ... you can too. Explore these pages, find what interests you, and if you have any questions, please contact us at 805-528-4437 or info@QuantumMindDynamics.com.

Make it a magnificent day!

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Holosync Failes Compared to Quantum Mind Power

Click Here for Direct Access to Quantum Mind Power

Most people who use self-help techniques to better themselves have heard of Holosync. If you don't know what Holosync is, I'll tell you. Basically it uses audio programming with binaural beats to change brain wave activity.

Changing brain wave activity brings on a meditative state much faster than self-meditation, and can reduce stress. Ongoing studies show that reducing stress using meditation techniques have a variety of benefits, including Lowering Cholesterol (American Heart Association); reducing chronic pain, anxiety, and high blood pressure (National Institutes of Health),lowers blood pressure (American Journal of Hypertension) and improves artery health by as much as 69 percent (American Heart Association).

Holosync is not the only way to quickly reduce stress. Other mind optimizing methods that can also reduce stress include: Hypnosis, general Meditation, and Biofeedback, not to mention a good exercise that could include Yoga and Pilates. You can also use isochronic tones to reduce stress.

The advantages to using Isochronic tones over binaural beats are very clear. Binaural beats require headphones because they working using two separate tones, played differently into each ear. The tones then create a pulse, or "beat." Users will not notice the separate tones because it is all done very fast. On the other hand, Isochronic tones do not require headphones. Only one tone is used, but it is manually spaced to turn on and off in a particular pattern. This makes it more effective because the brain doesn't have to do the extra work of putting the two tones together. The Isochronic tone technology has been fully tested and is proven to work. In 1999, the Journal of Neurotherapy published a case study conducted by Thomas Budzynski, Ph.D. He tested 8 struggling college students. After using both audio and visual brainwave stimulation, the students significantly increased their grade point average, and their GPA continued to rise even after treatment was discontinued! Isochronic tones reduce stress and have all of the benefits of Holysync, but instead of binaural beats, they use monaural and isochronic tones for what the creator, Morry Zelecovitch calls "brainwave entertainment. I know those are a few big words, but Morry is a certified "Brainwave Entertainment Engineer/Specialist." He has worked with the leaders in brainwave technology to develop this process %u2013 and he definitely knows what he's talking about!

Holosync products are very expensive, and are not guaranteed. However, it has more to do with how your brain reacts to certain stimuli. Some things work on some people, while others do not. Meditation is a good example. It can take some time to be comfortable with Meditation products, and many people quite before they get any benefits. With isochronic tones, many people are able to obtain a comfortable meditative state quickly, and for MUCH less cost.

Isochronic Tones have the power to: Reduce stress, enhance creativity, acquire a more positive attitude, develop better relationships, boost motivation, dissolve the mental and emotional blocks and resistance that hold you back from success, and much more.

If you've never heard of isochronic tones before, you can find out what's so unique and powerful at Quantum Mind Power. This could possibly revolutionize the entire self-improvement industry!

Thursday, June 7, 2007

How A Scientifically Proven New Technology Can Reduce Your Stress, Boost Your Creativity And Unleash The Hidden Powers Of Your Mind
Almost Instantly

The further on you read, you will begin to understand that this is all based on REAL science. Allow me to explain… welcome to science class.

Your brain is made of approximately 100-billion nerve cells, called neurons. Neurons have the ability to gather and transmit electrochemical signals. Think of your brain as a "super computer."

This "super computer" is able to communicate with the rest of your body by transmitting electrical signals using chemicals called neurotransmitters. If these chemicals or neurotransmitters are out of balance, it can lead to many problems.

For a long time now scientists have been measuring the electrical current from the surface of the brain using EEG (Electroencephalography) technology. The EEG measures these electrical discharges and records them as brainwave patterns.

Your State of Mind is Directly Determined By Your Brain Wave Patterns

Now these brain wave patterns can be placed into groups according to the frequency range which is directly related to the state of mind of the person. These are …

Beta (13 Hz - 30 Hz) is the state of normal, wakeful consciousness. As you are working, driving, talking, etc., you are usually in Beta. High beta activity is sometimes associated with anxiety, panic and stress.

Alpha (8 Hz - 12 Hz) is a state of light relaxation. Typified by a calm, focused mind. Alpha is sometimes called the "super learning state" because the brain seems to be more receptive and open to new information. Most people who meditate, do so in alpha.

Theta (4 Hz - 7 Hz) is a state of deep relaxation. Dreams and deep meditation are often associated with theta.

Delta, (0.5 Hz - 3 Hz) the slowest of the brainwave patterns, can be a state of deep sleep, or trance-like consciousness. Maintaining awareness in delta has been known to open a path to the unconscious.

* The areas "in-between" the different brainwave states are called "borders". They represent the transition stage between the different brainwave states.

In the course of an average day, most of us spend some amount of time in all of these brain states.

Soon scientists were asking themselves, “What if we could train the brain to go into these different states at will?” In other words, what if you could find a way to induce your brain into, let's say, any state of consciousness you want?

The Answer? ... Brain Wave Entrainment

“Entrainment” is a term from physics. It means "the tendency for two vibrating bodies to lock into phase so that they vibrate in harmony".

For example, one tuning fork when struck and placed next to another tuning fork will cause the second one to vibrate at the same rate.

This was first observed by Dutch scientist, Christian Huygens, in 1665 while he was working on the design of the pendulum clock. He found that when he placed two of the clocks on a wall near each other and swung the pendulums at different rates, they would eventually end up swinging at the same rate.

Now what if this same phenomenon could be repeated in training the brain to lock into the vibrations of an outside stimulus?

Well, several well documented scientific studies have shown that this is in fact possible. For centuries people have been using outside rhythmic stimulus in the form of drumbeats, chants and singing to induce various feelings, ranging from euphoria to sadness.

Thursday, May 31, 2007

7 Rune Tips
for Understanding, Integrating and Using Quantum Power Viking Runes to Get More of What You Want

The famous psychologist Carl Jung was a fan of the runes as was anthropologist Margaret Mead, who once exclaimed �Remarkable! An alphabet that reads A, B, C, X, Y, Z, God.

How can you make the best use of the amazing energies that trigger the Law of Attraction?

1. Read each card, look at the picture and notice what that energy feels like to you. We�ve all have the experience of stillness. How does stillness feel contrasted with chaos? You are familiar with all these 24 core energies. Start to notice them in your life.

2. Pick a Card for the Day.

Pick a random card and carry it with you. Apply the ideas and insights to your activities. Notice how the energy shows up, how it affects you and how you affect the world when you are deliberate about using the energy.

3. Ponder an Issue and Pick a Card!

Quantum Physics confirms what the ancient shamans world wide knew about our connection to everything and the unity of all. If you are willing to allow that part of you that is connected to access information, you will find wisdom and guidance from the rune cards. You will intuitively pick the card that will trigger understanding and insight regarding your pondered issue.

I have witnessed thousands of people, many skeptics, who were stunned by the accuracy of the cards message. Kings and peasants have used the runes to understand their past, their present and their future. You can as well. Ask yourself questions and trust that the card you pick leads you to valuable new awareness. Many have used the power of the runes to manifest their desires. Why not you? Let your new awareness lead you toward your dreams.

4. What Energy�Attracted the Current Circumstance?

Using the deck at my desk (Yes, I have decks of rune cards everywhere that I am likely to sit.) I pick the Quantum card�not a rune, but the whole universal web that contains and connects the runes and us, called �wyrd�. It suggests observing patterns of influence from then, now and when. It�s a fitting commentary on what brings me to write this message to you. It�s not a rune, just a great big comment from the universe. I pick another card and it suggests that the energy that created the current circumstances of me writing to you is both focused attention and concentrated energy. Yes, decades worth of then, now and when. I started my spiritual journey when I was 12 years old and have been a student and teacher of the universe forever, creating the current circumstance of creating a website and an opportunity to communicate with you.

5. What is the Current Energy and What is It Attracting?

One of my most frequently asked questions is �Regarding my issue, what is the current energy? I just now picked the card that indicates flow, non-resistance, effortlessness. It indicates to me that the universe is offering me a �green light� and, even more importantly, that I am not getting in my own way with resistance, doubt or fear. Knowing what energy is dominant regarding any issue is valuable. Aligning with the flow can make magic.

6. Where Are Things Headed?

Quantum Physics once again confirms the wisdom of the ancients. Time is not linear; our access to past, present and future is equally available. We can pick a rune to discover the outcome of any situation if we make no adjustments. Where are things headed? Just pick a card.

7. What Rune Energy Will�Attract� What I Want?

Knowing where things are headed allows us the choice to stay the course or shift directions. Everything in the Quantum universe is fluid and there are always infinite possibilities and parallel universes to explore. If you don�t prefer where things are headed then head in another direction. The runes can trigger insight and options if you trust your intuition and ability to know without knowing why.

The runes are familiar, core universal energies. They represent universal law and offer us the opportunity to participate in the manifestation of our intention and our dreams. Runes are simple and profound, and in infinite combinations they make up all of the experiences we have on this planet.